Rights and Responsibilities (Or How a Horse Was Tried for Murder)

An imbalanced curio from a Fringe debutant with a developing talent

After graduating in 2009, Tom Gockelen-Kozlowski wrote an article in The Guardian about how he doorstepped that very same newspaper in an attempt to procure some gainful employment. Seven years on and he has just gatecrashed the Edinburgh Fringe with his rather intriguing character-based impersonation show about what might conceivably happen if a campaign for animal rights were to be taken to its illogical conclusion.

The main creation on show here is Barnaby Allencourt QC, a slightly befuddled gentleman with a penchant for Paul McCartney and who is now living on his memories in a retirement home. A successful barrister, Allencourt nailed everyone from the Basingstoke Bastard to an animal-biting toddler, but has cause to feel regret over the horse who was tried for murder on his watch.

Rights and Responsibilities is a theatrical piece with a decent chunk of comedy, a smattering of crowd participation and an awful lot of politician mimicry: Gockelen-Kozlowski certainly has a canny Tony Blair, spooky Ed Miliband and spot-on John Major in his armoury. But in his attempt to compete with the likes of Rory Bremner and Matt Forde during August, he's concocted an imbalanced curio of a narrative where a future world leaves animals and humans on a level legal footing.

Tom Gockelen-Kozlowski
A horse tried for murder? A nonsensical idea, surely? Well not after the great Animal Rights and Responsibilities Act 2031 is passed into law. After MP's expenses, the financial crash and phone hacking, it was always likely that our farming methods would cause the next scandal. Speaking for the…